Center Stage: A Hot Baseball Romance (Diamond Brides Book 8)

by Mindy Klasky

  So she used the skills of a lifetime and waited for Ryan by the bank of elevators, the ones that led directly to the parking garage.

  Her pulse raced as she thought about seeing him again. She’d talked to the man every single night for past week and a half, each conversation more trusting and intimate than the one before.

  Yes. Intimate. It wasn’t just the words. It wasn’t just the way he melted her body with his tone of voice. It wasn’t even the things he said he wanted to do with her, the first hour they were alone together after he got back to Raleigh.

  It was the trust—the realization that Ryan Green was a man she could share things with. A man who would be there for her, no matter what was going on in his professional life, in his personal life, outside the confines of their relationship. Over and over again, through text and email and good old-fashioned conversation, he’d proven she could rely on him.

  And that was why she was astonished when she discovered she wasn’t alone by the elevator bank. “Mr. Green!” she exclaimed, as she found Ryan’s father standing by the same silver doors. She tried desperately not to think about the silky black lingerie she wore beneath her street clothes. Instead, she tried to force her thoughts toward icebergs and frozen tundra, toward the Gobi Desert and the barren surface of the moon—anything that would keep her from thinking sexy thoughts in front of the father of the man she was dying to shag. She pretended enthusiasm as she said, “Ryan didn’t say anything about you meeting the team.”

  He reached out and shook her hand. “Ryan didn’t know. I thought I’d surprise him.”

  Lindsey cast a quick eye over the older man’s clothes. He wore a suit—charcoal pinstripes cut specifically to emphasize his broad shoulders, to take into account his bit of a paunch. His blue shirt was flawless, and he sported a perfect four-in-hand knot for his necktie. He was a far cry from the man she’d seen in the dusty beach house. “What brings you to town?”

  “I had a meeting with the Rockets’ front office, about promotional profiles they’re doing for some of our boys. I figured, as long as I was coming up to the big city, I might as well dress the part.”

  “The new job is going well?”

  “Fantastic!” He sounded like he was fourteen years old and he’d just been invited to serve as ball-boy during the championship series. “It’s taken me a while to settle in. But this team knows how to sign great players, and it won’t be long before we’re getting the most out of every one of them. I really owe it to Ryan. He put himself on the line to get me this job, and I’ve never been happier.”

  As much as Lindsey had been looking forward to an impassioned reunion with Ryan, she was glad to see Mr. Green looking so well. The poor man had certainly come a long way in the few weeks since she’d first met him.

  Before she could say anything else, the elevator lobby was filled with men. There were a dozen of them at least, each more boisterous than the last—grateful to be free of the plane that had whisked them south, happy to be home with a day off before another grueling series began. The ballplayers filled all the available space, sucking the oxygen out of the air with their jokes and their antics.

  Lindsey recognized every one of the faces. A couple were familiar from the years she’d worked on the Rockets’ promotional team. Others were friends of Zach, players he’d invited to the farmhouse for family dinners, orphans he’d taken in for Thanksgiving or Christmas or whatever other holidays stranded players far from their own homes.

  She saw Zach by the far elevator, and she waved to him as he gave her a quizzical glance. She shook her head to chase away the worry on his face, trying to convey across the crowded space that she was fine, that she didn’t need him to break off his conversation on her behalf.

  Because she’d found the man she was looking for. She’d found Ryan.

  He dropped his duffel bag as she flew toward him. His arms were iron around her, cradling her, supporting her. His lips on hers were courteous at first, a respectful salute, but she answered his proper stance with a flick of her tongue, with an invitation she was dying for him to accept. She willed his hands to sear through her knit shirt; his sensitive fingertips had to sense the soft lace she could barely wait to show off to him.

  But that sort of display would have to wait. She needed to step back, to nod toward Mr. Green, welcoming him forward. Ryan followed her reluctant lead, a bit bemused, and he turned to shake his father’s hand. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  But Lindsey didn’t hear the answer. Instead, she felt Zach’s fingers closing on her arm. Her brother tugged her over to a corner of the lobby, and he leaned close to whisper, “What the hell are you doing?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry, big brother. It’s not like I’m going to throw him down on the floor right here.”

  “What are you doing with Ryan Green at all?” Zach took one look at her outfit, and she could have sworn he knew what she had on underneath.

  Anger burst inside her, bright and glaring against the hazy pleasure Ryan’s kiss had kindled. “What the hell, Zach?” She kept her voice low, but she filled it with all the emotions she’d mastered onstage, the anger and shame and self-protectiveness she needed to make her point. “You know Ryan and I are seeing each other. Are you trying to embarrass me in front of the entire team?”

  “I know—” He cut himself off and glared across at Ryan, who was still talking to Mr. Green. “What I know is that my baby sister was in bad shape a few weeks ago. And I know one of my teammates started to take advantage of that, so I told him to keep his goddamn hands off her.”

  “I’m not a child, Zach!” She didn’t muffle her words that time. The only saving grace was that two elevators arrived simultaneously. Silver doors glided open, and most of the team hustled inside. From the few looks she caught, every one of those big, brave baseball players was scurrying away to escape the firestorm that was about to break.

  Ryan didn’t leave, though. He closed the distance between them, bringing his father along to round out their little foursome. “Zach—” he began.

  “Something you forgot to tell me, buddy?” Zach’s words were tight, and he barely spared his teammate a glance. Instead, he kept his gaze pinned on Lindsey.

  I’m not afraid of Zach. That’s what Ryan had said. He and I already talked about this. About you.

  She’d never asked him what they’d said. She’d never confirmed that Zach actually approved of her relationship with Ryan. She’d assumed everything was okay—which was exactly what Ryan had meant for her to do. He’d lied to her. Lied by omission, even if he hadn’t come right out and said, “Zach’s given us his blessing.”

  She wiped her palms against the thighs of her jeans. “Zach,” she said. “I can explain everything.” She settled her hand on his arm, squeezing her fingers in a silent plea for him to understand.

  He twitched free of her grasp. “No explanation necessary, Linds. This isn’t very complicated. Ryan and I made a deal. He kept away from you, and his father stayed with the Satellites. One of us didn’t live up to his commitment. What’ll it be, Green? Want to think about that choice again?”

  She knew Zach was doing this to protect her. He was trying to keep her safe. And a few weeks earlier, she would have sat back and listened to him.

  But this wasn’t three weeks ago. This wasn’t the day she’d just found out she was too old to play the Itsy Bitsy Fucking Mouse. And so she straightened her spine and she met her brother’s eyes, keeping her voice perfectly even as she said, “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, Zach. But I don’t need you protecting me that way. I know you only want what’s best for me. And what’s best for me is Ryan.”

  She still believed that. Once they had a few minutes alone, Ryan would explain what had gone wrong, why he hadn’t confronted Zach. The two of them could talk about their relationship because they’d already talked about so many other things.

  She waited for three beats, measuring out the scene like they were performing
on some stage. She saw a muscle knot in Zach’s jaw. She watched him bite back some sort of reply, whatever angry words first came to the tip of his tongue. And then she turned toward the man she had chosen, the man who was perfect for her.

  Ryan wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  He stared at the tile floor as if the alternating black and white squares told him every secret of the universe. His shoulders were hunched, and his feet shuffled as he shifted his weight, left to right and back again. His fingers clenched into loose fists, opened again, gaped empty by his sides.

  “Ryan?” she asked. When he didn’t raise his eyes, panic folded shadowy fingers around her throat, making it hard for her to breathe. “Ryan!” she said, and this time he looked at her, but only for a moment. Only long enough for her to see misery in his eyes.

  She whirled back to her brother. “Tell him,” she ordered. “Tell him he doesn’t have to make a choice.”

  Zach shook his head. “Sorry, Linds. He’s not good enough for you.”

  In that moment, she hated her brother—hated him for controlling her, hated him for ruining the one good thing that had happened to her in the last two years. But even through the crimson curtain of her rage, she knew he was telling her the truth. Zach was the only man she knew who had never lied to her.

  “Ryan,” she said, and now she forgot to use her actor skills. She didn’t care if her voice grew sharp, if her words rasped against the tears that flooded her throat. “Tell him the truth.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice thready and weak. He looked up then, finally. But he didn’t meet Lindsey’s eyes. Instead, he looked at his father, at that neat pinstripe suit, at the perfect haircut and the fresh-trimmed mustache and the man who’d been born again out of the wreckage in that Chester Beach house.

  “Son,” Mr. Green said. “I never meant—”

  “This isn’t your fault, Dad,” Ryan said.

  So. Ryan could speak one sentence of truth. None of this was Mr. Green’s fault. But that didn’t change the rage that tore through Lindsey’s heart. It didn’t keep her from turning away, from wrapping her trembling arms around her belly and concentrating with every last ounce of her energy to keep from being sick on her knees, there in the frozen tiled lobby.

  She couldn’t push a button and wait for an elevator like nothing had happened. She couldn’t pretend that her heart hadn’t just shattered into a million jagged pieces. Instead, she slammed both hands against the door that led to the stairway, and she hurtled down the steps, digging out her keys as she raced to her car.

  ~~~

  Ryan squinted toward the dugout, picking up the signals flashing from the defensive coach. The guy wanted him to move deeper into center field. There must be a scouting report on the batter at the plate, a history of his hitting the ball deep. Sure. Fine. Whatever.

  He wiped his sleeve across his forehead as he took up his new position. Jesus, it was hot out here. The air felt stale, like it had run out of oxygen a lifetime ago.

  He watched the batter at the plate, saw him hit a fastball foul down the first base line. Strike one.

  God, Ryan could hardly catch his breath. That’s what he got, trying to play a game after a night of tossing and turning without sleep. He kept playing that goddamn scene at the airport over and over again in his mind. Zach there. His father. Lindsey, looking like he’d gutted her. Well, he had. He’d lied to her for weeks, letting her think he’d made things good with Zach.

  The batter took a massive swing at a change up, missed it by a mile. Strike two.

  The thing was, he’d had to do it. Sitting there in that living room in Chester Beach, with the pizza boxes, and the TV, and the piles of ancient box scores. It had cut his heart out, seeing Dad like that.

  Mom had known it would happen. That’s why she’d made Ryan promise. That’s why she’d said it was so important for him to get Dad involved, to keep him from dying his own slow, aching death. Ryan had agreed, because that’s what Mom had needed. Because that’s what a good son did. Because he couldn’t keep her alive, and a promise was the most he could offer.

  Crack.

  The ball streaked off the bat, combining a hundred miles an hour of fastball heat with a killer swing. The scouting reports were wrong, though. The ball didn’t arc toward the warning track. It was a line drive, sailing over the shortstop’s head, plummeting toward the no-man’s land in the great grassy expanse of center field.

  Ryan sprinted for it. He pounded out three full strides. He pushed off with his right leg, leaping, stretching, and that’s when he felt the muscle pop. Even as his mouth stretched, even as his lungs emptied around an agonized cry, he knew it was his hamstring, the same strain from the start of the season, but a thousand times worse.

  The ball rolled past him, finding its way into Sartain’s glove, into the infield and the cut-off man who wasn’t able to hold the runner at second. Ryan rolled onto his back, pounding the grass with his fist. He couldn’t straighten his leg; he knew without trying that he couldn’t put weight on it. The pain twisted around his stomach, filled his mouth with acid that scorched all the way down as he forced himself to swallow.

  It took a lifetime for the trainer to trot out there. Longer for Sartain and Norton to get their shoulders under his arms, to carry him back to the dugout in an improvised three-legged race. He heard the crowd applaud, knew the clapping meant they had his back, they appreciated his effort.

  But he didn’t need an MRI to tell him he was going on the disabled list. And this time, he’d be lucky if he played before the end of the season.

  ~~~

  Lindsey was astonished to discover how many hours there were in a day. It seemed like she’d been racing for months, always darting from one thing to another, always frantic, desperate to cram ten more things into her waking hours.

  First, there’d been the wedding, with all the energy that had taken. Sure, she’d planned on something small and intimate, but even the simplest of weddings required the bride to think, to act, to do. And now, with the raw perspective she’d gained from being jilted, she could admit to herself that she’d hidden behind too many of those decisions so she didn’t need to question her true feelings for Will.

  Then, there’d been the flurry of hooking up with Ryan. She’d fallen hard for him. She’d let him take over her mind, her memory. Those shopping expeditions for surprise lingerie, long drawn-out phone conversations, hours spent in his bed (okay, not enough of those, or that’s what she’d thought when she believed what they had was real…)

  But now she had all the time in the world.

  She picked up a job at one of the downtown hotels, catering. She might as well pad her bank account while she could. Who knew if she’d ever be on stage again?

  She actually considered going back to Children’s Repertory Theater. Oh, they wouldn’t have any roles for her, they’d made that perfectly clear. But there was always work to do in the front office. She could make fundraising calls. Stuff envelopes for the theater’s mailings. It was easy, familiar.

  Boring as wallpaper paste. But safe. And it filled up time.

  Now, on a Tuesday morning with July heat already beating through the windows of her home, her phone chirped an alarm at her. She deleted the notice, barely reading it.

  She’d scheduled the audition weeks before. It wouldn’t be right to pretend like it didn’t exist at all. And maybe, just maybe, something would be different this time. There might be some way she could prove to the director that she was competent. That she was just the person he needed to make his dream production come true.

  With a substantial part of her mind still wondering why she bothered, she sifted through the papers on her kitchen counter, digging deep until she found the manila envelope Jamie Martin had sent her days before. She was still astonished by the image the photographer had captured—a grown woman who stared out at her in black and white. The familiar curve of her cheekbones became something mysterious above dark lipstick; the smile in her eyes hin
ted at longer stories, more complex tales than she’d ever told before.

  And those were exactly the tales she was supposed to tell Dominic Reed, when she read for his new production in less than an hour.

  She certainly hadn’t prepared for the audition the way she would have earlier in her career. Instead, she’d relied on an old acting class from college, on a scene she’d prepared for Theater Arts 301. At the time, she couldn’t imagine ever being the actual age to play the role, every taking on the real emotion in the scene. But now it matched her mood perfectly.

  She was ready to play Medea.

  She couldn’t remember when she’d first read the tragedy. The heroine was driven mad by her husband’s infidelity. In a blind rage, she committed an unspeakable sin, killing her own children. Every word of the Greek classic was pure rage, uncut fury.

  Of course, Lindsey didn’t have any children in danger of murder. But when she thought of what she’d been through in the past two years, when she remembered standing in those churches, waiting for Doug, waiting for Will, she understood a little of what the mad Greek queen must have felt. The men who had jilted Lindsey had betrayed her, had been unfaithful.

  And Ryan had too. He’d lied to her, made promises he hadn’t kept. When she pictured Ryan standing in the elevator lobby, ashamed, defeated, unwilling even to meet her eyes, she felt the mad queen’s rage.

  A perky assistant greeted her at the theater. “Lindsey Ormond?” she asked. “We’re ready for you now.”

  As Lindsey handed over her headshot, she took a deep breath, pouring steel through her entire body as she walked to the stage. She stared out into the audience, toward the shadows that she knew were the producer, the director, and the stage manager.

  “Lindsey, love,” called out Dominic, in that Yorkshire accent she’d come to know so well when he’d guest-directed The Spiky Porcupine at CRT. “I must admit, I’m a bit surprised to see you here. Euripides isn’t really your type of playwright, is he? Classical Greek drama?”